the galah

oh and while i'm at it. in 2021 hrnz did a survey. they published the results. 95.93 % of the 500 who replied said they checked the hrnz website and 79% said they did that daily. now i would say,if you doing a survey via the hrnz website,the numbers will obviouly be skewed significantly that way anyway,but still they are noteworthy. yet the hrnz website is just average in my opinion,because it often breaks down, .Just this week it did it again when the races were on and you couldn't access details of the hoses.The uploading of the results and videos is pathetically slow. The gallopers love racing have theirs on within 5 minutes,but with the harness its often hours later.And they fail to have the unhinged content on there. When asked how often do you look at the hrnz facebook page,50% said never.And 83% didn't know hrnz has 2 facebook pages. 87% said they never look at the hrnz twitter account. 38% said hrnz does not communicate well. now thats obviously an indication that hrnz target audience is older.

if i was being honest,i don't think your queensland product is anywhere near as good as our canterbury product and that is why there is not much interest in harness racing there and i think several of the other states have the same public perception issues.I think you seem to agree. i see no reason why it would improve over there and it just makes sense it will get worse as the filelds are often dominated by multiple runners from the high profile stables. your horses are as good,but i've watched enough of your queensland product to realise i just don't think everyone is trying each time and theres too much team driving,so i wouldn't bet on your product again for that reason. And i say that as having been someone who starting during covid, watched and did the form on every race run in queensland for about 8 months and for the last 5 months of those spent about an average of $100 on 2 different accounts($200 total) per race,on every harness race run in queensland.whether it be marburg or redcliffe or albion park i gave up for 2 reasons,1)i didn't trust the drivers to try each time and was often left feeling i was taken for a ride and as you know,i don't like that. and 2)because the nz tab promised they would invite me into the elite punters rewards thing if i met turnover criteria of around $100,000 per annum on any account. I was at that time an elite customer on one account already and they promised to make me the same on the other account when i met that turnover threshold. Well i met the turnover threshlod. But when i rung our tab and asked when am i going to get the email saying i was entitlied to rewards,they told me,tough luck,yes i met the turnover threshold but i wasn't going to be getting into the elite rewards club. No reason given,just tough luck ,don't ring us again type thing. so i was already frustrated with some of the queenland harness drivers,remember i started threads on here about the likes of one of the barnes brothers,so i took my $2000 a day spend on the nz tab on queensland harness racing at the time and stopped all together. thats how the nz tab worked at the time. Just idiots running it. anyway,so i think i have an informed opinion as far as queensland harness racing goes. as to nz.In the last 20 years the intergenerational transfer of interest in the harness racing sport has slowly evaporated. 20 years ago,most people over 45 gambled,whether it be regularly or occasionally on harness racing. But their children haven't . When i worked at the big factory where 25% would have been punters or my other job where 85% were, one of the biggest things that struck me was just how many people over 50 followed the sport. And what also struck me was just how little following the sport got from people in their 20's at that time.if you drew a graph you could see the decline on a steady downwards trend based on age. Most of the under 25 year olds talked about gaming,more smoked weed than didn't and there was some who watched a lot of porn. Actually one bloke, who i ate lunch with each day,he was a bit of a character. Every day i would say to him,what did you do last night. Every day he would say,went home,smoked a bit of week,had a w... while i watched porn and played on line poker and did a bit of gaming. Now occasionally he would add,f... the misses,shes after something ,i guess i'll find out. Actually i'm drifting off topic again,but the point is those blokes will be in their 40's now and i know they won't be betting on racing like the previous genreation did. i've always said ,hrnz and all racing adminsitrators have not put enough resources into promoting the particpation of over 50 year old people. Decade after decade,i call them the dumb administrators,have foccussed resources on getting young people into the game when they would have been far more successful directing those promtional resources into the over 50 year olds and not only getting more over 50 year olds involved,but working on a plan to use those over 50 year olds to expose the younger members of their families and friends to the sport and get that intergenreration transfer of interest.. Like,how many decades have we heard the dumb people say ,we need more young people,yet the bright sparks that say that have never have come up with a strategy that works to get them involved. Its such flawed and dumb as thinking. The current HRNZ people seem some of the dumbest yet in that respect.But ou can't just blame the current administrators as those that have gone before them have had the same mindset. tabforever said earlier,his marketing expert says target existing or past customers to builfd your base back up. I said i fully agreed and said not only that,harness racfing need to also target the same demograophic of the current current or past customers. it actually surprises me that people don't see just how much harness racing is declining in canterbury.They will see in 5-10 years. sadly a lot of is issues are outside the control of any adminstrator or smart thinking person.

those were the days and they still existed just 15-20 years ago. That was when if you went to some of those summer racemeeting,especially the country ones,you had to bob and weave your way through the crowds near the tote as there was that many people standing around. The xmas at the races meetings would have full carparks and i remember the crowd being 4-5 deep the whole length of the straight at some of those christmas at the races meetings. you have a look at the oamaru car park tomorrow. You will be able to count the cars you see beyond the 100m on one hand. It was only 20 years ago they had a racemeeting there, where the entire car park was full. I know as i was there. 20 years ago i had 2 jobs. One had 35 people work there and 29 were regular weekly punters and most focussed on harness racing. Then the other job was a factory type job but 25% of the work force would have been punters. Trackside always playing in the background. Back then,if you had a bet you could listen to it on the radio on the racing channel that was dedicated solely to racing.You had free to air trackside tv. (they stopped that not long after-tv since reintstated recently)You had haness racing with win pools that averaged between $40,000-50,000. Thats just the win pools. I look back on old videos of races 20 years ago and marvel at that.You had no commingling, so punters foccussed on the local product as the australian products pools were too small to matter.20 years ago you had a generation of people aged between 50-70 who had been brought up in an era where racing,particularly harness racing in the south island,was very relevant. Back then you didn't have the tab saturating the customers with thousands of races to bet on like you do now,the focus was on local.You had clubs actively promoting on course attendance. change,well change is definetly not always for the better. Even today,administrators continue to look for new change when the reality is they would be better going back to what worked in the past and building from there. so winning a harness race used to be not only about the excitement of the on course experience but the recognition of a sense of achievement you got from extended family,friends,workmates and the public. as to bernie hackett. for years he drives the same.I really don't think anyone knows whether he is trying or not. I don't even think he knows i think the best way to sum him up is hes a top trainer,but his driving lacks desire and he tends to drive horses who hes just trying to work out how to shoe better. Thats the impression i get from him. actually i put $5 a place on the n chilcott horse in that. And i got a drive that i was saying to myself afterwards,what a waste of $5. Sitting in the 1/1 turning for home,then simply never pulled out and got boxed in with 250m to run.Had she pulled out i'm pretty sure it runs 3rd .it battled on in behind them to be beaten a head for 3rd,but really trotters don't go running up hard on other horses back and it was a no brainer to pull out and give it an opportunity of a clear run. Very basic driving. i think she would have gone for a holiday for 2 months if in the n the south island. Up there the stipes probablycouldn't cope with 2 dodgy drives in the one race. Afterall it was the last race and the stipes up there like to have sleep as much as they can,so wanted to head home.

Winning anywhere used to be a big deal for those involved,like it meant something significant..That still seems to be the case in the south island and at auckland. But when i look at the way they drive and the body language of some of those involved,its like winning or losing is no big deal. Like its just another day at the office, where you go to make a living,but that you would probably be trying harder or having more fun, playing cards with the boys on a weeknight.. cambridge seems mundane to me and punters pick up on that.i often channel surf and see a bit of harness racing in south australia ,where they have meetings with stakes between $3000 and $4500,they seem much more competitive. anyway,i guess the answer for me maybe to watch the 500lb sisters or the 90 day fiance on the reality channel. Just had a look at whats currently on the reality channel. At the moment it is about a massager called dr colon(actual name). What a shit name to have. Anyway it says this week dr colon is treating a woman with cmt(some sort of nerve disorder), who hopes to stand at her daughters wedding and a big breasted woman with extreme neck pain.i once knew a woman who had bad back pain from that. She had whoppers.all natural,had to get them reduced... actually i might record that and watch it next thursday night.

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probably partly right. k coppins,the driver of rough and ready,seems a driver who horses will go ok for,but the race was run hard early,so her decision after 600m to try and place her horse 4 or 5 back the inside was strange,then she seemed to realise that wasn't a good move but thereafter remained indecisive as to what was the best thing to do. Eventually doing nothing then puliing out 6 lengths off the leader with 200m to run,but was able to make up 3 lengths or more on everything in the last 150m. you could say i'm being harsh criticising someone who is a junior driver.Probably partly correct,but i have accurately described what people would have seen had they bet on that horse.She does average 3 drives a week.People who bet,whether big or small,like to get a run for their money ,otherwise they just switch over to the reality channel with the 500lb sisters or the 90 day fiance. So the point is you see a lot of that. K coppins came out and drove the winner of the next race which unfolded with her getting the ideal run from the 1 draw and taking the passing lane to win. like i said,horses run ok for her. What i would find interestingto know is, what are the people who are mentoring some of these drivers saying. Are they saying nice job,we dropped another couple of points in the ratings,or are they saying,don't worry babe we'll get them next week with a similar drive when we strike a 5 horse field. I don't know.But it doesn't seem to be much of a big deal whether they win or lose.

Im advocating for current leadership that implement policies that are able to fund racing at cambridge at a level that sees particpation numbers maintained in the future. i'm pro racing at cambridge,just not in the form it currently is. the reason punters moan about cambridge is because its not a good look fo the sport. the race i just watched for an interest,you had the out the gate blokes bet on yet another horse that sat at the back and made no attempt to get into a winning position. That was claude.Probably wouldn't have won had it made a move earlier anyway,but it would have been nice to have thought it may have been wanting to win,but thats not the impression you got, watching the race. Then the horse following it,the major win mover,rough and ready,well its driver showed no interest whatsoever in trying to even place.Really strange drive. I'm not sure whether that was deliberate or just an indication of her lack of tactical thinking.But thats what cambridge dishes up each week.No one ever moves up mid race. boring.

isn't the point,when they run out of money to prop up areas that are struggling to limit the losses their meetings incur,then they will be the areas targeted most significantly and impacted by the inevitable future cuts so,most of us are arguing hrnz shouild be being fiscally responsible now. In other words,it is the policies you advocate for when it comes to the likes of auckland and cambridge,which will lead to the inevitable shrinking of the harness racing footprint in the areas like auckland and southland. it is the very policies you want that will unltimately be self inflicvted wounds for auckland. And ,most of us can see, the people the industry is losing the most, are the enthusiasts who aren't so much focused on having big stakes for 2 year olds and open class races.The very ones that would have still particpated beyond crunch times had they been valued more in current times. Every future year hrnz continue to overspend as they currently are,is a wound to the future of the level of participation in the sport in 5-10 years time. anyone who wants the sport to be relevant in the future should be wantinghrnz to be fiscally responsible and have sustainable policies. there are still positives,harness racing will get their share of funds from the entain geo blocking thing,the sports betting increase thiing ,the greyhound share of turnover thing. what most of us want to see is a vision that we can believe in that will give enough confidence for people currently particpating in the sport to continue. Thas not currently happening.

my guess is they cut stakes signifciantly across the board in nz ,especially at the top end and high profile, current administrators we currently have,move on to bigger and better jobs overseas about 12-18 months before that happens. That will be the first signal of whats to come..Personally i think they will be able to drag out the continued over spending for more than the remaining 2 1/2 years of the entain thing,maybe 4. Then we all say,well we told you so.

m peden comes across as a nice bloke doing a very difficult job.But being a nice bloke doesn't help when it comes to doing smart things..I just think he and those around him listen too much and want to please too much,special interests groups and fail to hear the voices of those that the industry is losing.i think he is probably the type of bloke that reads this forum. Thats part of why i put my ideas out there. look,i really do think you 100% spot on with what you say about your marketing mans advice.Absolutely... Give him a job at hrnz or you get a job there and push that thinking. i would also say,if they are to target new customers,at least be sensible about it and target the same type of demographic that makes up the current customers.Or develop a strategy whereby you target current or past customers and use them to link any new demograohic. But first,get back to the basics that your marketing man said.

wasn't a southlander. I better not drift off with more comment on that type of thing. southlanders,when i worked there for a few months, i found were the friendliest,most welcoming and hard working of any new zealanders.everyone seemed very honest that i met.The harness racing people all very nice people as well as was the generall population. that was a while ago now,but all the southlanders i've met since still seem the same. I guess its still the same down there.Dairying changed the landuse pretty quickly after i had moved on from there and i have to admit ,old school dairying people the same,but the more recent generations seem over focussed on the $ .Just a bit different to what they used to be. actually we've thought afew times about moving there,but the weather really can be a bit cold and as we discussed previously if you are at a point in life where you are considering the health of your lungs and your heart,invercargill or even the likes of winton or some other areas of southland ,just not the best place to be.I used to follow the air quality readings there for a while when we were thinking about a move.Iit was only a couple of years ago they said invercargill the worst place in nz for deaths from air pollution. Thats a combination of all pollution factors,cars,fires,industrial. i just looked it up again. invercargill has 219 premature deaths from air pollution per 100,000 people,the worst rate in nz. christchurch actually has the highest premature death rate if you were to break it down to car emmisions being the cause. ecan southland chair at the time said" its stunning,quite staggering actually and we need a coalition to get some interventions whcuih can actually improve that.". the only comment i would make about that data from a couple of years ago would be,well,its been like that for a while, so they shouldn't be surprised. actually i've often wondered whether thats a reason why southland can't seem to produce the top horses that race beyond 3. They used to,but not these days. nathan williamson has a lot of good young horses,but given the number of good ones hes had,they don't go on to be competitive in the open class ranks. my theory has always been,and yes i know its just a theory,is that part of the reason is he comes from an area with bad air and its cold. No i actually have no idea where branxholme is ,it appears to be about 10 miles from central invercargill. i guess it depends the hills and gullies and wind and all that to see what impact air poultion has on it. but its certainly not in a good area. and if you think about it,horses are known to be impacted by air temperature.Studies have shown a significant link between lower temperatures and the higher risk of bleeding in horses lungs. And then you throw in this very obvious pollutant factor and reallyit just makes sense. if i was him,which of course i'm not,i would be monitoring air qualirty and temperatures and working my fast work schedules around the times where its warmer and has the better air quality days. i know that seems a bit left field,but i persoanlly think its a very obvious thing. my thoughts have caught on the breeze that has ended up floating above branxholme,all because you made a comment about southlanders driving with a sheep to the local pie cart.you never know where a topic may take you.

i would have given them points for trying,but after hearing all of what m peden said,all it did was reinforce my opinions about those making the decisions. Why do they always discriminate based on age. . can anyone tell me why they give you breeding credits for a 6 year old,but not 7 years or older. These people ,they just don't seem to get it.i think they have no idea what people like me think and i really think they don't wantb people like me involved. These people like peden are discrimatory and to a degree not very nice. every time they give preferential treatment they alienate people andm show they couldn't care less about the people they exclude. That was the first thing i thought when i saw that m peden announce that. Hang on,why is my horse excluded. these people,they are fools who just look after themselves and thier special interest groups. a minute after i saw m peden on tv,r my wife walked into the room i was watching on tv and said,why do they exclude our horse yet include a horse up to 6.Isn't that typical of how they work.

maybe i should add,that was a long time ago,he had only the 1 horse and he handed in his licence in after being caught in the act. the world full of people who do strange things.

funny how your mind thinks. i thought i wonder if that was the best wording as well. I once stabled a horse at a property and there was this fella who also stabled one there and he had the angriest horse you could ever come come across.seemed to hate people. it would try and aattack anyone that walked past its stall. Well guess what,it turned out there was a reason for that and it involved the trainer and ropes. mmm,not sure whether people will like that story,but its a true story.

australia full of interesting characters,some of whom get up to some dodgy stuff. I'v alway been fascinated what makes some of them tick and i enjoy watching or reading about real life people and what they got up to and there backgrounds. Just last night i watched a couple of episodes on george freeman and mick sayers.Both came from nowhere,both very enthusiastic gamblers. What ive learnt in life is everythings shades of grey and you have to understand people to understand how they got to do what they do. and the gambling and th horse racing just adds extra layers of intrigue and brings out behavior in people that its all part of human nature,warts and all. persobnally i think having such a crosss ection of society is what has created a mystique around racing. As they used to say,its where the rich.the poor,the people with high powered jobs and the unemployed can all gather with a common interest . those blokes i mentioned above. I'm sure they are in the racing for the love of the sport and the thrill and the highs and lows that come with it.Racing can be addictive in itself and chasing that buzz,whether it be from the punt or owning or training or driving,thats part of the attraction for some people. the key is just in policing people when they do wrong,.I'm someone who thinks when they have done their time,lets them back in to compete. just watch them closely as people really don't change much. I think the likes of greg bennett,he should be allwod back in and the drug dealers we mentioned,well when they have done their time,welcome them back as well. as its the people as well as the horses that give racing a bit of colour and intrigue. nz harness racing is very tame with characters compared to your aussie counterparts. Nz harness racing people tend to be very hard working who look out for one another within the bubble and try to do the right thing.. Sometimes i think its a shame it doesn't have some more cut throat or dodgy characters to give it a bit of colour and to give it a bit more rivalry . nz harness racfing did used to have a lot of people who acted like rams and who would jump the fence and serve another farmers prized breeding ewe if they were willing. That was interesting enough to observe. Does that still happen?. i don't know,i'm not up with the play or gossip in that respect these days.

Interesting you mention the emma stewart horse. The fella doing the pre race comments said the emma stewart horse would be under instructions to press forward and make sure she took the early lead. Well a delosa pulled back straight away to 4 back the fence.funny.i've seen her drive a bit. Horses run for her for sure but has just an average tactical brain at this stage,in my oopinion. the queensland horse driven by mr mcmullen all over the place. Broke twice then still looked to be running on without much room but ran into the back of the e stewart horse. i don't doubt mr mcmullen is a good driver like you say,but every time in a big race he is all over the place. as you say the leader drifted out. That appeared to be because r morris,the husband of the winning trainer, didn't rate his horse well at all. I don't know whether he did that deliberately to give his wifes horse a chance or just went too hard so as to set it up for the other mccarthy horse or most probably,he just drove a poorly judged race.There ws no need for him to throw in a 26.4 3rd 1/4,he really should have been trying to conserve a bit of energy for the final stretch. I think had the likes of mark purdon been driving kingman,he may have even won but as you say he got tired in the last 100m becasue of the speed he had set up and wandered around. stillhjis tactics made it a n exciting race to watch.

i agree with pretty much everything you have said. Auckland racing was entertaining this week. Good to see the full fields for the 2 year olds. Only the high class race was not a good watch. lets hope we get more of that. cambridge ,is part of northern racing though and it has delievered a couple of uncompetitive nights racing ,not because of the horses, but because of the field size and negative driving.

its been a funny old last few of months for some of australian harness racing participants. in tasmania you had the driver olivia weidenbach prosecuted for couriering $90,000 through sydney airport,allegedly money from illegal activities.Last year the fella who trained the yole horses in victoria,robert walters was found to have falsified his neighbours signature when asked for proof he had permission for water supply to his property,when visited by stewards. Then soon after day he failed a drug test himself, but for a short time was still able to train in tasmania,but not victoria,and at one point still had had 20 horses under his name in tasmania that had been transferrred from w yole into his name after they had been transferred to w yole by b yole.I'm guessing they enjoy playing musical chairs. Then in july this year,you had a case heard where another tasmanian driver, who i think drove for yole at one point,well she had been the victim of some abuse from a trainer she upset with some comments iin victoriathat trainer ,a mr caruana sent her a text telling her to keep her mouth shut,remember this face you lesbian junkie slut.,commenting he may have to visit tasmaia. He was also quite a welcoming chap when the stewards turned up one day,telling them they may find his property a dangerous property to visit.District attorney,the horse who ended leap to fames winning streak when trained by jason grimson was a horse he owned and also has recently been training again. then you had this week the fella,justin downey,remembered amongst other things for joining in to help jack trainor and jason grimson in a fight they got into a bar in brisbane i think. Hey,that was a mate just helping a mate out in a pub stoush. Well this week he has been charged with serious drug supply charges. Hey someones got to meet the demand for meth. He obviously a very colourful fella literally as he is known for having some really good tattoo work on his body. His wife ,well shes out on bail.i wonder if he make bail in time io visit christchurch this year. oh and last month you had the south australian trainer luke o'neill. Well he has a horse trsansport business and was using that to traffic cannabis,apparently allegedly 100kgs. He claimed there was good money in selling hay and horse meds. Hey,whats wrong with a bit of a side business when going to the mildura trots. actually that reminds me of a big drug case involving polo ponies.true story,it would be over 30 years ago now,this horse truck overturned somewhere near waimate and when police turned up it had all these big barrels lying around. Well the cop,being the helpful fella he was,helped them put the barrells back on the truck,but what they didn't know was he had a wee peek inside one of the barrells as,well cops can be a tad curious sometimes.hullo ,hullo what have we got here i think he may have said.. Well that then led to the police staking out the property of the fella with the polo ponies.One cop even living in the bush for a couple of months.Obviously an outdoors man.anyway,turned out there was this massive cannabis farm on the property and the owner of the property was growing it on cntract for what was beilieved to be the south islnadfs biggest cannabis supplier. You see,he was supposed to have about 8 other farmers growing cannabis for his,throughout the south island.Now that bloke was one smooth dude. looked the part tyhats for sure with a very attractive wife. Anyway the polo playing man ,well he was a mean and ugly looking bugga,but he had a girlfriend who was a model and had done tv ads.Oh what money can get you. Well anyway,the upshot of it all was they had to spend a bit of a vacation at her majesties pleasure. The real shame was,the fella i called ugly and mean,well they let him out on bail at one point while they waited for the case to be heard,well blow me days,he went and visited an aquaintance in matamata and went and shot and killed him when he opened the door. You don't want visitors like that.

its getting pretty hard to do that these days gammalite. if you look ,grazing in a paddock with no supervision seems to cost around $40 p.w. With supervision it can be over $70 p.w. in some places.So if you owned one of those good racehorses ,you could afford it,but if you had 4 that hadn't really paid their way but tried hard and had lovely natures then thats close to $200 a week, just to keep them in a paddock.99% of people just don't do that. then you have so many do gooders who have no idea. Just today,no bullshit,we were out feeding our old horses like we do everyday over winter and i had some woman come up to me and tell me she was disgusted that i never brushed them.Apparently she lives next door to someone who has a horse and brushes and rides it each day.so i should do the same with every horse we have. When i told her ,what the heck are you talking about,she said she would ring the spca. Our horses look fine,are fed everyday,but she wanted them brushed each day. Then she said they should be put down if i wasn't going to brush them like her neighbour does. Honestly you would not believe the number of people who poke their noses into what you do when you keep old horses .I've kept our old racehorses. Still have them.Once i had a call from an spca man who said he had a complaint someone who went to work each day,next to where 1 horse was paddocked,had never seen me feed that horse, Well he came and inspected it,like he had to,saw it was fine and i told him,well i work from 7am to 6p.m. so i feed it at night afer work. he just laughed,but i said its not really funny. Then i iused to every year,for 4 years when i was at another place,have a call from the same spca man as someone complained every year. He would ring up my mum,say,sorry to bother you but i've got another complaint and i know i will find nothing wrong,but i've got to come and have a look anyway. Then one day,he had arrived before i was able to get there and the caretaker told me when i arrived that the spca man had been trying to find out what it was that i had done to upset someone that they woulfd keep making false complaints about me. The caretaker told me,i tried to find out for you who the complainent was,but all the spca man would say,was its someone who you can see from here who obviously hates me.well i had no idea who he was talking about. Well i then complained to the spca man , who said he agreed,see if i can get the i.d. of the complainent released by the head man at the auckland spca. The auckland spca man said leave it with me. He never rung back so i rung him again and he said,yes,your right,there is someone making what the local spca said were maicious complaints every year,but unfortunately he couldn't release that persons details. Then the local spca man rung up and told me,hey this person is going to complain to hrnz now. So what happened. Someone from hrnz turns up when i wasn't there.So i ring that hrnz person up and say,who was it complaining and he said i can't tell you. Then i said well what did you find with the couple of horses i had there.He said nothing,they look fine,oh but what did you do with the horse in the paddock down there. I said,well you know the horses you said looked fine,well that is the horses that were in that paddock.He then commented Well you know the best thing to do is put a cover on your horse, thats what the spca said as well. And its true,you can have a perfectly healthy horse and people will complain and an unhealthy one with a cover,and people won't.I could also tell you the story about ,because we had a few horses,when it was published in the local paper that a racing person had a complaint laid with the spca that they were investigating. Well,blow me down,next thing its all over town that it was me and our horses. I just laughed it off as i'd dealt with all this type of crap before and knew it wasn't ours,they weren't even in the same province. but in the end i heard it that much that it did piss me off and i tracked down the person who started the rumours. Turned out to be someone i worked with who put 2 plus 2 and got 10. Idiot. Anyway,i knew who it was who was the subject of the article,it was a galloping person who would take in horses that no one wanted,trying to help them,but then got too many. She was having an affair,,as galloping people seem to a lot where i lived at the time,and the wife of the man she was having an affair with was out for revenge and went to the local paper. one thing i have learnt ,and it applies not just to keeping your old horses,but to everything. People who do something outside the norm are viewed as odd or unusual. its the way people think.they don't like seeing people do something outside the box,because it unsettles them for some reason. everyone has to make their own decision. No one should be telling me what i should do,just as i feel i have no rite to tell anyone else what to do. I can tell people what i would like to see happen,thats different from telling someone what to do. and then you add in all the half baked do gooders who have no idea what they are talking about around horse care.

xenon use has been alleged for a few years prior to the nz harness racing warning they were taking the allegations seriously. i think it was curious who posted on another topic a video of darren weir electric shocking his horses on a treadmill. How low does someone have to go to make money from racing. well coincidentally,Weir used those low oxygen tents didn't he. well do you think it was coincidence that it was eported racing analysts and sports scientists believed a ballarat trainer was using xenon in combination with low oxygen tents,where xenon gas replaced a % of oxygen as a way of increasing epo levels. of course,as you say ,all just suppositions ,like the racing analysts and sports scientists,what would they know. Just like the electric shocking at the time,all just guessing and like d weir,well he would never do anything like that to make his horses run faster. moral of the story, the truth may come out in the end.

i've given my solutuions before. e.g.Southland racing i have said don't have the numbers to support racing all year around,so they should close racing down for a 2-3 months over winter and provide well funded travel subsidies to any southland horses that want to continue racing ,whether it be in canterbury or auckland. like,they are having limited racing season for the central districts,so if they can see that makes sense,then why can't they see it would make sense in other area with limited horse numbers. hrnz thinking and policies in that respect are all over the place,depending on who they think should get preferential treatment. Just treat all regions with the same logic. as to auckland and cambridge. They have given the,lets saturate the racing opportunities for all horses and that way the small number of people left can at least make enough to carry oh. well i'm saying,points for trying the queensland model ,but it hasn't worked because there simply aren't enough horses to maintain that model. but before i would make any suggestions ,firstly i would have to know the profit /loss that is being generated from all the meetings in the north island,with a breakdown of turnovers on 5 horse races and the 10-12 horse races. Ideally i would like to see a model for that region where they get back to having at least 10 horses in a race. I would take some of the money they allocated for the bigger stakes and the likes of the golden gait races and reallocate it to pay also rans more. For example an $8000 race becomes a $10,000 race and you have a sliding scale of payments to all runners,but making sure the differential between 1-4 is maitained with the also rans. they cant carry on with the boring racing they currently are giving us at cambridge. What i'm really saying is the need to make the racing oppotunities reflect the number of racehorses better. i believe all regions should be given a dirrective of what the basic outline of the model hrnz wants,with each region having most inputb into the exact specifics. persoanlly i still think the north island needs to relocate and cntralise auckland and cambridge and provide a racing and training establishment which provides a grass track suitable for a summer series over 2-3 months culmintaing in finals.

i'm not sure which specific bit of the current topic you say is unfounded allegations. The xenon gas thing was publically commented on by HRNZ at the time,so it was something acknowledged as real.they did not deny it.The racing industry narrative should be simply,we dealt with tah and its not relevant today as far as they know.But don't deny it happned. you use the hard working particpants thing a bit ,but i'm not sure why you think they are any different from the rest of the population,so i think your comment about them avoiding social media not accurate. you have just said people within the industry have become insular.. The defintion of insular is" ignorant or uninterested in the views of others outside their own interests".Well i don't think you've made an accurate comment.Personally i believe people within the industry magnify the significance of issues they or the industry have to deal with. Thats different from insular. Using he example of the persons views who we have been discussing. Well i'm saying she is an example of someone the industry should have recognised was getting to a point of possibly tarnishing the industries reputation to some degree and that could have been avoided had they dealt with her differently and addressed her concerns in a way that the industry could defend itself better. as to her number of followers,well someone said she had 50,000 on facebook.50,000 seems a lot to me, but i really have no idea whether thats a lot for facebook as i don't do facebook. i'm not sure why you would reference yankiwi. How did that end for the greyhound industry, In other words yankiwi wasn't the cause of the greyhound industries demise,he was simply someone who said,hey you have to deal with certain issues or else they will close the industry down. So he turned out to be correct. i believe the industry needs to control her narrative,whether it be by bringing her more into the fold to let her have some influence on matters she has raised,or by greater understanding of the message you need to counter her narrative. I'm really saying,the racing industry has to be very careful what messages they allow to go unfiltered to the oublic by anyone. The public really can have some warped sense of what should be a horses after racing life experience. Animal welfare groups,while well meaning,use the publics ignorance to turn a narrative.its just part of what they deem a necessary game they need to play to achieve their goals. and they do it well.

i agreed with the banning of the live exports.shame they are going to allow the cows to be exported again. Its just another example of the current government prioritising the $ over the environment and animal welfare issues. I've always thought the whole dairying and to a lesser extent the cow exports is quite a tangled web of influence by people with big money. its not just central government, its local. Just look at the backgrounds and the connections of some of those who got postions at ecan and those people,then allowed all the water to be taken to enable dairying on such a massive scale,knowing with it came very serious environmental issues. the press, some years ago, had a very well researched article which delved into the links between one of nz's richest men and the people making the decisions at the likes of ecan. I could name several examples of men who have either themselves or through their proxies,got into positions of authority and influence on water right decisions who have had hundreds of millions of dollars riding on the dairying expansions and the taking of water. but back to the sinking of that big ship . it was very interesting to follow that. the ship,with a history of mechanical, maintenace issues,sailed into a typhoon when all the other ships on the seas in that region had taken cover ,as they knew what had been forecast.Hell they had engine issues not long after they left napier.They didn't lay the total blame on the inexperienced captain ,but the guy must have been an idiot who chose to risk everything ,seemingly partly to create a good impression with the financially troubled company he was working for and to meet deadlines for the watering and feeding of the cows. Seems so crazy that someone could be that stupid. anyways,i say ban live cow exports.

perhaps i should have added,as i wandered off to care for my horse i watched our driver and the driver who knocked us over ,get into the same car and start their journey back to auckland with others . Harness racing operates within a bubble and things within that bubble are magnified.. You need outsiders who aren't part of the group think. The irony is,the more outsiders you have,the better those within the bubble perform. But its all heading the wrong way and cambridge racing is an example of that.

working out the reasons why racing at cambridge is such a bore and so unattractive from a betting perspective,doesn't seem too hard. 1)having.6 races with an average field size of just 6.6. 2) so many opportunites for every horse that exists in the north island to race every week of the year. 3)The small number of participants and the bubble they work in-i think this is the most important reason myself. Look at the backgrounds of those competing. they all know each other because many are related,they are all mates,so many of them work together.I'm guessing all the drivers from oustside the waikato area would travel in 2 or 3 cars to the track.No one,and i mean no one exists outside te bubble that exists in waikato/auckland, except for luk chin. outside the amateur race last night you had 9 professionals and 10 junior drivers. j stormont,p ferguson,w rich,z butcher,b butcher,m white,j dickie,a poutama ,n chilcott l hibell,e johnson,j dunn,b wilkins ,k coppins,m ranger,c hackett,f schumaker,h orange,k denisfotova now i'm not saying this bubble doesn't have good people with camradery and i'm sure they would rally around someone within the bubble if they needed support in some way.But i'm talking about the racing product that they want us to bet on. i've seen how it works.quite a few years ago, we travelled a long way to start a horse in the middle of the north island. Half way down the straight bang,when travelling and looking like the winner,a driver inside barges into our horse and knocks him over (which caused a career ending injury),you could hear the bang 200m away where i stood. So the horse and driver come back in,the driver says,we got completely flattened by ...,he just barged his way out ,it was quite reckless the way he did it. So what did he tell the stipes,well nothing apparently. Even though blind freddy could tell what happended from just 1 look at the video. That was 30 years ago and the stipe being escott,well he preferred to be the big bully that he liked to be what asked to show the video evidence that justified his inaction. Tosser..anyway. the lesson i learnt was drivers aren't going to moan about what their mate has done as they may need their mate to cover for them next time. Mates don't want to upset a good relationship by complaining . i get it,thats just the way it works. but heres the thing, you see the same thinking in the way they drive. They drive like they don't want to be annoying one another with aggressive tactics.Afer all,we're all mates aren't we,type of thing. The drivers up there i'm sure are very loyal,hard working and would do whatever they can to help someone they knew out. but the problem is theres no one outside the bubble to keep those within the bubble on their toes and its all ended up like the punter is being taken fro granted and that they know HRNZ is going to keep prioritising the uncompetitivercaing they dish up.. you know ,i used to read where gammalite would say,he hardly ever watchs redcliffe races at all and i used to not quite understand that, as he is a pasionate follower of harness racing. But having watched cambridge recently,i get why now. And the thing is redcliffe racing has full fields and is more competitive than cambridge.